Whiteboard

They say nature abhors a vacuum. We love it. When we see a white wall, we want to write on it. Thus, this space. Like the whiteboard-painted walls in our conference room, we'll fill it up with ideas, express our opinions and share what we've learned in our daily quests for insight and knowledge.

4 Ways to Get Quality Links for Your Domain

Building quality links is essential to improving your website’s rank on Google. But with search engines getting stricter in their enforcement of link building rules, it’s more important than ever to do it right.

Here are 4 ideas for obtaining legitimate links.

1. Reach out to your alma mater

Most SEOs view .edu links as a great way to increase a website’s domain authority. However, getting those links can be a challenge. One way to achieve this is to contact your alma mater’s Career Development or Student Affairs Office. Ask if you can write a piece about how your experience at that school prepared you for your career today. When they post it on their website, ask them to include a link back to your site in your bio.

2. Find unlinked mentions

Google your brand or use a free tool such as Social Mention to find any and all mentions of your brand name, topic or trademark. If you find a mention on a blog with high traffic and decent domain authority, email the site’s Webmaster to request a link.

Learn more about advanced search commands here, and read some approaches for convincing bloggers to give you a link here.

3. Create a scholarship

Nearly all colleges and universities have a list of scholarships for which students can apply. And most of them include that list online, with links back to the scholarship granters. Here are some examples:

This is a great way to get an .edu link back to your site. Keep in mind, though, that creating a scholarship is not an easy task. From determining the kind of scholarship you want to offer to deciding on the award levels and the criteria for eligibility, there are many details to be considered and finalized.

Once that work is done and your scholarship is established, send emails to the Admissions and/or college Career Development offices at any higher education institutes that are relevant to your scholarship.

Universities typically put a lot of effort into promoting available scholarships; you should be able to find numerous schools willing to list yours. The end result? You’ll boost your website’s domain authority and you’ll be giving a helping hand to students in need.

4. Encourage reviews

If you have a useful website tool or product, you can cultivate backlinks by offering it to other bloggers in your niche market free of charge. To find a list of sites that are relevant to your topic, perform a Google search using “site:.com” and “Intitile.”

For example, to find sites offering advice on link building techniques, enter the following in the search bar: site:.com intitle:”Link Building Techniques”

site:.com allows you to search all sites with .com domains (you can also do the same with .edu, .gov, .org, etc.)

Intitle:”Link Building Techniques” narrows your search to sites with title tags that are an exact match for “Link Building Techniques”

You can use a tool like Link Prospector, which finds all relevant sites according to keywords your submit.

Once you’ve found your relevant sites or blogs, create a hyper-focused list of those that are the most relevant and reputable. Send each a personal email asking them to write a review in exchange for free use of the product.

NOTE: It violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to specifically ask for a link back to your site in exchange for the free product. In fact, there are some experts who caution against using this technique at all. Read one opinion here.

And do your due diligence before undertaking any link building strategies:

Read the full Google Webmaster Guidelines here, or the section specifically on link schemes here.

These are just a handful of the nearly endless ways to build good inbound links—without resorting to spammy tactics. What’s your favorite white-hat practice for link building?